It's been an old dream of mine to find a software that could be used as a dashboard for everything, or if not for everything, then at least for the most important writing projects. Mainly I want to be able to organise and re-organise links to files on my drive that pertain to specific projects.

The problem with everything I tried is that a) after a while a single page gets too crowded or b) it is too convoluted to link to files and rearrange items, or c) it is visually difficult to consume.

So far I tried WhizFolders, Planz, "hubs" in SmartDraw 2012, ConnectedText, VUE, and CmapTools.

The main criteria would be:
- light enough for it to start quickly (I'd want to have it open automatically at Windows start-up and keep it open);
- drag and drop of any file from file explorer creates a link to the file (ideally with an icon of the app and the file name);
- easy to rearrange, collapse, zoom in and out of branches.
- easy to duplicate branches.
- alternative visualisations (e.g. outline, mind map).
- internal linking between items;
- ability to add additional icons, colour-coding, highlighting.

I've just started using Freeplane for this today, and it seems to tick a lot of the boxes above. It's a bit slow to start, doesn't add the file icons, and you can't zoom (hoist), but can do all the others. Besides the drag and drop of file links it can also link directly to internal ConnectedText (and other) documents, which is great. But it's early days, as I don't know how easy it will be to navigate once it has over a hundred links.

Any other suggestions for such a dashboard software?

I should also add the ability to annotate any item (any link to a file), which can also be done in Freeplane.

Dr Andus,

You are describing TheBrain almost perfectly. You should really give it a try. I use it much the way you are describing as a dashboard for my office work. The only slight issue you might have with it is that the "outline" view is a little lightweight.

Steve Z.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

You are describing TheBrain almost perfectly. You should really give it
a try. I use it much the way you are describing as a dashboard for my
office work. The only slight issue you might have with it is that the
"outline" view is a little lightweight.

Steve, thanks for the suggestion. I've tried TheBrain repeatedly over the years but somehow I never figured out what I could use it for. It hasn't occurred to me to use it as a dashboard.

If I remember correctly, my problem with TheBrain was that individual items can't be permanently pinned to a board. When you click on an item, all the related items dynamically rearrange themselves on the screen, which I find problematic because I want to remember the spatial co-ordinates of where things are.

The advantage of TheBrain over a standard mind mapper seems to be that it can zoom (hoist). However, what I like about Freeplane is that one can have a one-page total overview of a mind map when it's unfolded, which doesn't seem to be possible with TheBrain.

Is there such a thing as a zoomable/hoistable standard mind map? I'd love it if Freeplane would work like WorkFlowy, so that by clicking or double-clicking on a node you zoom into that branch but still have breadcrumbs to go back home in one go or gradually.

Dr Andus wrote:

Is there such a thing as a zoomable/hoistable standard mind map?

Yes there is: http://www.mindgenius.com/

(hard to justify the price though, as with most mind mappers)

Dr Andus, reading your specifications above I also thought of TheBrain; then, when you mentioned the pinned-down view I thought of TreeSheets. I would imagine it is ideal, but not very convenient with the links, as you get them in full view.

TheBrain has (for me) a very big advantage over mind maps, which justifies a dynamic view: you can link anything to anything. A mind map has by definition one centre from which everything radiates; yet this is not a good model for the kind of information I personally deal with--your situation may vary. By the way, I believe MindGenius partly overcomes this limitation: it can restructure the map with different reference points, based on tags, similarly to TreeSheets.

Dr Andus wrote:

If I remember correctly, my problem with TheBrain was that individual
items can't be permanently pinned to a board. When you click on an item,
all the related items dynamically rearrange themselves on the screen,
which I find problematic because I want to remember the spatial
co-ordinates of where things are.

The advantage of TheBrain over a standard mind mapper seems to be that
it can zoom (hoist). However, what I like about Freeplane is that one
can have a one-page total overview of a mind map when it's unfolded,
which doesn't seem to be possible with TheBrain.

In terms of pinning, TheBrain does pin thoughts for quick access. I'm not sure this is what you have in mind.

There are other ways to view your plex. The standard view reminds me of Brainstorm in that you are always hoisting and only see siblings and the immediate parent(s) and children. You can also choose outline view and extended view. which can be customized to what you want

Jon

I think I have had the same dream for years. :) I looked at some of the corkboard software I use but it doesn't run the files I add - just downloads them. If anyone finds or develops such a solution, I would be interested in it as well.

Dr Andus,

Check out this video tutorial of how to use TheBrain's expanded views, which may be what you're looking for:

http://www.thebrain.com/support/tutorials/display-options/expand/

Steve

Dr Andus wrote:

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>You are describing TheBrain almost perfectly. You should really give it
>a try. I use it much the way you are describing as a dashboard for my
>office work. The only slight issue you might have with it is that the
>"outline" view is a little lightweight.

Steve, thanks for the suggestion. I've tried TheBrain repeatedly over
the years but somehow I never figured out what I could use it for. It
hasn't occurred to me to use it as a dashboard.

If I remember correctly, my problem with TheBrain was that individual
items can't be permanently pinned to a board. When you click on an item,
all the related items dynamically rearrange themselves on the screen,
which I find problematic because I want to remember the spatial
co-ordinates of where things are.

The advantage of TheBrain over a standard mind mapper seems to be that
it can zoom (hoist). However, what I like about Freeplane is that one
can have a one-page total overview of a mind map when it's unfolded,
which doesn't seem to be possible with TheBrain.

Is there such a thing as a zoomable/hoistable standard mind map? I'd
love it if Freeplane would work like WorkFlowy, so that by clicking or
double-clicking on a node you zoom into that branch but still have
breadcrumbs to go back home in one go or gradually.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Dr Andus,

Check out this video tutorial of how to use TheBrain's expanded views,
which may be what you're looking for:

http://www.thebrain.com/support/tutorials/display-options/expand/

Yes, thanks for that. That's exactly what I was wondering about.

Is there a way to display items in a custom-order (i.e. other than alphabetical order) in the outline or expanded view?

You can select from a list of options as to how the child thoughts are sorted beneath a parent thought in TheBrain. These are by:

Name
Date Created On
Date Last Active
Date Last Modified
Type

The only way to organize them otherwise is to sort by Name and then number them in the order you prefer, which is okay for a small list that you don't change, but is not practical for a changing or long list. For example, I use numbers to keep the months of the year in proper order in my Day Book section.

One possibly reasonable work around would be to make use of the thought typing. If you are not otherwise using types to classify your thoughts, you could create a series of types simply as numbers, then assign a number type to each thought in the order you want them to appear, as you can sort by type. Since you can only assign one type to a thought, this would not work if you also wanted to use typing for real classification.

Steve

A few more thoughts about your search for the perfect dashboard.

Dr Andus wrote:

The main criteria would be:
- light enough for it to start quickly (I'd want to have it open automatically at Windows start-up and keep it open);

TheBrain takes a few moments to open, but I've got it launching at Windows start-up and keep it open all day.

- drag and drop of any file from file explorer creates a link to the file (ideally with an icon of the app and the file name)

TheBrain excels at this, especially on a Windows PC. The default setting is to create a link to the file, but you can also choose to have the file embedded (either copied to or moved to) TheBrain database.

- easy to rearrange, collapse, zoom in and out of branches.

Again, this is what TheBrain does better than any app I've tried. And there are several ways to move thoughts around. You can use the selection box for capturing and moving a lot of thoughts at once. Or manually move them in several ways.

- easy to duplicate branches.

No problem. Just create a new "thought" and begin typing the name. A list of already created thoughts with similar wording present themselves for you to select from or create a brand new thought.

- alternative visualisations (e.g. outline, mind map).

In some ways very good, as in the expanded views. Outline mode is a little funky, although technically, I suppose it is an outline. Definitely the weakest performance of your criteria.

- internal linking between items;

The visual links of TB are obvious. What appeals to me about how TB works is that these links indicate relationships depending on where they sprout from the active thought. What is not so obvious is that you can create hyper-links to other thoughts within the notes panel -- not a strong implementation of this wiki-style linking, but nevertheless available if that is of use.

- ability to add additional icons, colour-coding, highlighting.

Again, TB does this very well. You can capture screen shots to serve as icons. You can set up thought types that will change the color of the thought font or background and/or use a specific icon. You can also tag thoughts, which show up right on the screen as sub script.

There is one more thing I want to mention about TB that might be useful: It has an excellent search feature, though it is hidden by the fact that the search box is so innocuous. Type in the search box and you get a pop up list of thoughts that have names that match your search (this is a bit of a fuzzy search, as they do not need to match perfectly). But if you hit enter after typing in your search criteria, you get a list of matches in the search tool pane -- and these are organized by how they match: name of thought, note body, and attached file (but only if the file is embedded in the database, not if it is a link to an external file).

I know it must seem that I'm desperate for you to use TB, but I'm not. It is just that I found myself thinking how well TB matches what you're looking for. TB is a bit of an outlier as to how it works, so it would be understandable if it just doesn't feel right.

Steve Z.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

A few more thoughts about your search for the perfect dashboard.

Thanks Steve, I really appreciate the detailed breakdown. It puts TheBrain in new light for me. In the past I was a bit too quick to judge and thought it was a bit gimmicky, as I was usually comparing it to ConnectedText or other outliners and mind mappers.

For me the issue is that I want to retain a lot of control over where items are appearing on the screen, so I can also use spatial memory for finding things. (Obviously in a Freeplane map the nodes stay exactly where I put them.) I can now see that the expanded view does give some options for that, though I'm wondering how easy or convenient it might be to use that as a default mode on an on-going basis.

In any case, I will check out TheBrain once more, as I might ease up on some of my criteria, if the dashboard functionality compensates with some other features.

My use doesn't quite match yours, but I use Notecase Pro for my overall dashboard. if you like the mindmap approach, Xmind is a good free alternative. It does some nice structural views that are often helpful (a matrix spreadsheet-like view that is helpful for some kind of planning, and allows zooming).

Based on your list of functions, you might want to take a look at the rather eccentric but interesting Planz, a kind of file system overlay in the form of an outliner:

http://kftf.ischool.washington.edu/planner_index.htm

I've played with it, and I rather like it. It doesn't quite suit me (I prefer to store my data in single-file databases of one sort or another), but it might suit you. It was recently open-sourced.

Cheers,
Bill

Thanks for the reminder about Planz. I remember when it was first introduced. It sounded as if it had a lot of promise, but there was some reason I could never try it -- maybe it only worked with Office 2007 or higher or something.

It reminds me in a way of another application, which has a little more visual appeal, called Correlate:

http://www.correlate.com

That's another option for Dr Andus to check out.

Steve Z.


MadaboutDana wrote:

Based on your list of functions, you might want to take a look at the
rather eccentric but interesting Planz, a kind of file system overlay in
the form of an outliner:

http://kftf.ischool.washington.edu/planner_index.htm

I've played with it, and I rather like it. It doesn't quite suit me (I
prefer to store my data in single-file databases of one sort or
another), but it might suit you. It was recently open-sourced.

Cheers,
Bill

MadaboutDana wrote:

Based on your list of functions, you might want to take a look at the
rather eccentric but interesting Planz, a kind of file system overlay in
the form of an outliner:
http://kftf.ischool.washington.edu/planner_index.htm

Yes, thanks, I did try it in the past. The underlying idea is good but I didn't find it a usable software in the end. It feels like an abandoned beta.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

It reminds me in a way of another application, which has a little more
visual appeal, called Correlate:
http://www.correlate.com

Thanks, interesting... There is not all that much info on the website though (a single screenshot), which makes the price tag a bit off-putting. It seems similar to what Freeplane can do, which is free... At least TheBrain has got loads of videos and tutorials to help evaluate the software.

jaslar wrote:

My use doesn't quite match yours, but I use Notecase Pro for my overall
dashboard. if you like the mindmap approach, Xmind is a good free
alternative. It does some nice structural views that are often helpful
(a matrix spreadsheet-like view that is helpful for some kind of
planning, and allows zooming).

Not really sure about XMind. It is very intriguing and has features that make it unique, but for large mind maps it has not been stable for me (Windows 7 Pro). Apparently I am not alone as others have reported this on the XMind website. It may be Java related, but much larger mind maps are no problem with either FreePlane or TheBrain.

Jon

Jon Polish wrote:

Not really sure about XMind. It is very intriguing and has features that
make it unique, but for large mind maps it has not been stable for me
(Windows 7 Pro). Apparently I am not alone as others have reported this
on the XMind website. It may be Java related, but much larger mind maps
are no problem with either FreePlane or TheBrain.

I've never used XMind long enough to run into these problems, but just like with MindGenius (which I've only just looked at on its website) and other business-orientated mind mappers, what puts me off is the interface. They just seem unnecessarily busy with colour and features. When I discovered Freemind, and then Freeplane, the minimalist interface was such a relief!

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Angela West wrote:

Please contact us via Live Chat on working hours (Monday to Friday 8am
to 6pm GMT) and we will try to help you to unlock this modem.

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Angela, your suggestion for a project management software elsewhere in the forum seemed well placed, but your two recent rather irrelevant posts make me wonder if you are just trying to automatically create backlinks pointing to that site.

A Google search for "angela west app.intellobuild.com" brings up many many similar postings, including the following info http://www.topdatum.com/Construction/Material-handling/2391-A-Web-Based-Construction-Management-Software.html according to which "Angela West is a public relations executive for GamePlan. GamePlan develops, sells and supports Construction project management software for architecture, engineering and Web Based Construction Management Software firms worldwide."

I personally have no problem with developers informing us about their product at this forum, as long as they clarify their own involvement with it, and don't do it in a repeated / spammy fashion.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

your two recent rather irrelevant
posts make me wonder if you are just trying to automatically create
backlinks pointing to that site.

This does look like "black hat SEO." I will certainly not try a product that is being promoted in this way, especially on a forum like this one.

I'd suggest to delete these links from the forum.

Seconded.

Gameplan is a perfectly legitimate piece of software, which makes this kind of spamming even more irritating. Simply because it's bloody rude!

Dr Andus wrote:

It's been an old dream of mine to find a software that could be used as
a dashboard for everything, or if not for everything, then at least for
the most important writing projects. Mainly I want to be able to
organise and re-organise links to files on my drive that pertain to
specific projects.

The problem with everything I tried is that a) after a while a single
page gets too crowded or b) it is too convoluted to link to files and
rearrange items, or c) it is visually difficult to consume.

So far I tried WhizFolders, Planz, "hubs" in SmartDraw 2012,
ConnectedText, VUE, and CmapTools.

The main criteria would be:
- light enough for it to start quickly (I'd want to have it open
automatically at Windows start-up and keep it open);
- drag and drop of any file from file explorer creates a link to the
file (ideally with an icon of the app and the file name);
- easy to rearrange, collapse, zoom in and out of branches.
- easy to duplicate branches.
- alternative visualisations (e.g. outline, mind map).
- internal linking between items;
- ability to add additional icons, colour-coding, highlighting.

I've just started using Freeplane for this today, and it seems to tick a
lot of the boxes above. It's a bit slow to start, doesn't add the file
icons, and you can't zoom (hoist), but can do all the others. Besides
the drag and drop of file links it can also link directly to internal
ConnectedText (and other) documents, which is great. But it's early
days, as I don't know how easy it will be to navigate once it has over a
hundred links.

Any other suggestions for such a dashboard software?

A weird possibility occurred to me since I was testing it for managing my projects but ToDoList from Abstract Spoon will do some of this.

It is not as visual of an interface, but you can create tasks and nested tasks that link to files and web sites and you can customize which columns show up. Very easy to view by a certain category and it works very fast for me.

1. Light: Yes
2. Drag and Drop: Yes
3. Rearrange, collapse and zoom: Yes
4. Easy to duplicate branches: Not really branches, but yes they can be copied
5. Alternate visualizations: No, just a minimalist table interface
6. Link between items: Yes, with dependencies
7. Additional icons, colour coding, highlighting: Not really - Can set different font colours

Other things that might be useful to filter:
1. tags
2. categories
3. status
4. other columns like allocated to, versoin, external ID could all be used as extra controls

Actually, that's a rather brilliant idea. I suppose in principle it's what an organisational app should be about.